


Minor Realizations

by viceversa



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Shawn Spencer, Cabin Fic, Character Study, Eventual Fluff, First Time, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, I'm projecting on the entire fic ok, M/M, Pansexual Carlton Lassiter, Set before Mr. Yin Presents, Shitty childhoods, because he totally was, during season 4, mentions of Henry being abusive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:00:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23756518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceversa/pseuds/viceversa
Summary: Carlton Lassiter needed a vacation from work - and more specifically from the fake psychic hellbent on making him insane. A cabin in the woods, an unexpected (but was he really?) visitor, and some serious truths await him on his retreat to regroup.
Relationships: Carlton Lassiter/Shawn Spencer
Comments: 79
Kudos: 358





	1. Escape

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to @otava for their beta work and suggestions! All remaining mistakes are mine.

Carlton Lassiter was not a man easily swayed by emotion, good or bad. He learned at a very young age that when bad things happened, life just goes on. Time didn’t stop to let you cry in a corner and recover - you simply have to keep moving on. 

When his father left, life got worse and changed drastically. Those were the facts. His mother had to work multiple jobs to keep their family afloat. He was nine when he started spending weekends at Old Sonora, and it was true that Hank had a hand in raising young Binky. Those weekends were what kept him going in school - a weekly escape from no friends and a strained, quiet home life.

Among other things, one lesson he learned from the old sheriff was that his emotions didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, only his actions. He took cues from his Irish Catholic family to bury his feelings, and he learned to channel some into being useful and disregard the rest. 

The other adults in his life never seemed to understand that. They were always so wrapped up in their own emotions that they didn’t get the bigger picture: there were good guys, like Hank, and bad guys, like the guy he had a shootout with every day on the main street of Old Senora. Good was supposed to beat evil, and that was all that mattered.

Instead of thinking about how he was lonely as a kid, or how his mom barely paid attention to him, or how his teachers all thought he was too serious, Carlton decided to focus on the important, the tangible. Rules. Facts. History. Law. Things to quantify, to distinguish right from wrong without that pesky gray area messing things up. 

Law enforcement called to him, even as a kid. To be a real life old west sheriff, to get the bad guy every time, to be respected by civilians - it was the best thing he could think to be. Even when that naive dream faded into real detective work and all the stressors that came with that job, justice was still what drove him.

His focus on his goals made it easy to keep his head down through high school. He joined clubs that would help him succeed, and accepted scholarships to college, studied criminology, and went straight into the police academy. 

Carlton had plenty of achievements in his personal life too, and all from hard work. There wasn’t luck involved in making Head Detective, in consistently getting the bad guys, in staying alive during horrible situations. That was dogged determination, plain and simple. It helped him survive everything else, too - his marriage ups and downs, his long and sleepless nights at the station, his failures.

Emotions other than anger and justice (which he absolutely counted as an emotion) weren’t useful, so he blocked them out. When the need came, because he was human after all, a few fingers of scotch and staring moodily over a bar did the trick. Usually.

Life went on, and on, and on, and the only thing to do was go along with it. And Lassiter did a pretty good job of that, all things considered, until one Shawn Spencer came prancing into his place of work. 

Then all hell broke loose. 

-

It had been a shitty year that was slowly converging into more dense shittiness, and as strong as Carlton was day-to-day, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Life had been consistently punching him in the face.

Boom, he loses a suspect. Boom, he’s handed long-overdue divorce papers. Boom, he almost gets shot in the head in a graveyard. Boom, the one good thing and person from his childhood is threatened, then closed. Boom, Spencer solves another case. Boom, Spencer humiliates him again. Boom, Spencer gets shot and everything is way too real and scary and for the first time Carlton really feels out of control. 

Boom, he can’t stop thinking about Shawn Fucking Spencer. 

The list kept going on, and Lassiter had to get away from it all lest he finally snap and shoot someone who really didn’t deserve it. It’s the perfect time to get away anyway, since O’Hara is at some Women in Law Enforcement seminar and he’d be stuck with a rookie if he didn’t take time off. It was Vick’s way of kicking him out without writing him up officially. 

He found a cabin in the forest, not too out of the way but nicely isolated and quiet. It would be restorative, a way to reset his mentality, to emerge with a new focus so he could keep going without being so weighed down in it all. 

Carlton heard one of the younger officers talk about something called “self care” and how important it was, and if a nice quiet trip to the woods to overcome your emotional burdens wasn’t self care, he didn’t know what was.

When he tried to pinpoint the problem, he realized that it was just too many things at once. He was used to dealing with one big bad thing at a time, because there was always something wrong with his life. That was just how life went. 

He was simply exhausted; Physically, emotionally, mentally. 

When he and Victoria were separated, he was doing well at work. When work was stressful, he had hope in his love life to rely on. There was always something that was okay to focus on - his Civil War reenactments, his war with the squirrels (damn them all to hell), his shooting skills, hell, even his friendship with O’Hara. 

But now everything felt like it was crumbling around him, and there was no  _ good _ to triumph over the evil anymore. He was experienced enough that he could either take a break to regroup, or keep working himself into a hole that he’d never crawl out of. And he wasn’t ready to give up.

It was Spencer that drove him to this extreme, and no way was he about to let that idiot ruin his career more than he already had. On top of every other thing going wrong with his life, his own brain decided to betray him and realize a latent attraction to one lying psychic, Shawn Spencer. 

_ How can one man be annoying to the point of inciting murderous rage after one sentence?  _

He made no issue with the fact that he was attracted to a man. He knew from a very young age that the gender or lack thereof of a person made no difference to him. Lassiter didn’t act on anything outside of Catholic-approved chaste dating with girls until college, which was where he also learned the term “pansexual.” 

He’d worked through the cognitive dissonance of being queer and conservative in his own time, but unsurprisingly the combination didn’t exactly attract others of similar orientations. 

And Lassiter was fine with that. He hadn’t had much time to look for companionship after college - he had met Victoria while in the Academy, and they were married not too long after that. Then work kept him occupied - so occupied that his marriage fell apart.    


It was really just downhill from there. Aside from a few poor decisions and one night stands, Carlton had been alone for years. 

And that was fine, too. Really. 

It had just been a rough few months, post getting his hopes up with Victoria again and suddenly being divorced, officially, after a few years of this back and forth. But if he was honest with himself, in hindsight it was a long time coming. This Spencer thing was just some odd side effect of a permanent shift in his life. 

Hence escaping to the woods. 

-

The drive up into the Santa Ynez Mountains was relaxing because Carlton forced himself to try to relax. He thought of the steaks he packed to cook on a fire, the crime novels he brought to read, the stack of cold cases to look over, the lack of cell service to enjoy. No one to bother him, no criminals to chase, no psychics to want to strangle and kiss at the same time.

_ Wasn’t that an interesting thought? No! Focus!  _

It was a damn nice cabin, just as advertised, located far enough from the main road that there wasn’t any unwanted noise - not that there would be since it wasn’t peak season. As far as Lassiter knew, he was the only person in a dozen miles or so. Maybe even more.

A veritable paradise, even in the middle of March. 

The cabin itself was basically one big room, simple, with a central fireplace and separate wood stove for cooking. It had minimal electricity for the fridge, coffee maker, and overhead lighting off a generator. One bed, two arm chairs, some simple shelving made up the furniture and the wood interior walls were sparsely decorated, functional enough for a vacation or hunting cabin. 

It’s cozy and rustic, and as he walked in it made him think of his weekends at Old Senora. Something about the smell of nature and the distance from his troubles back in town just hit him.

Back then, visiting Hank meant learning about all sorts of history and camping and practical skills. Hank taught him how to shoot a gun, how to camp, and how to be a man. 

He never thought of Hank as anything other than a hero until he had to arrest him on suspicion of murder. Even though he didn’t do it, that case finally made Carlton see Hank not as an archetype but as a man. A tired, old, stubborn man who had spent too much of his life alone and regretted it. 

Carlton let out a sigh and set his bags down on the bed, trying not to analyze that particular thought too deeply. He turned and started bringing in the rest of the supplies he’d brought in the car.

As he tried to pivot his inner monologue, Spencer slammed back into his head. Old Sonora was tainted with the memory of the case, and he couldn’t help but think of Spencer helping him out. He pulled through and helped Hank at the end of the day, even when he messed everything up along the way. 

_ And he didn’t look too bad in that Sheriff costume either… Christ, Carlton, control yourself.  _

The case at Old Senora was a significant turning point for him regarding the fake psychic - and it wasn’t the first. 

If Lassiter had to pinpoint the moment something first felt  _ off _ , it was all because of that lunatic man named Mary. Well, maybe not  _ him _ \- more his obsession with the even bigger lunatic Mr. Yang. Mary was somehow more weird than Spencer, and for the first time Spencer was almost normal in his mind.  _ Almost. _

After Spencer threw the phone into the ocean - their only lead and link to Yang, Lassiter thought that was the last straw – that Spencer would have to be arrested for accessory to murder, that his career would be over and an innocent woman would die. But minutes later, he proved all of that wrong with his breakdown in the office of Psych. 

The Yang case… hell, it changed everything.

It finally showed him that Spencer had sense enough to be scared, as a civilian and a person. He couldn’t just run around with his little sidekick and do… whatever it was that Spencer and Guster did to solve the case while eating tacos and ranting about pineapples and generally making his life a living hell on that case. He was worried and scared and he took it seriously, and even when his family was threatened he still solved the case. 

That was the moment it hit Lassiter. 

They were better off with Spencer on their team. 

The cases he’d solved over the years, the most traumatic and the most heroic, they flash through his mind nightly, haunting him before he gets to sleep, mocking every mistake he made, everything he could’ve done differently, every clue he should’ve caught earlier. 

For the first time, he started to wonder if Spencer had similar regrets - if cases and failures haunted him, too. 

At that thought he finished his trips from his car and unpacked the last of his clothing onto the shelves. He was stocked up with enough food for a few weeks on the off chance he wanted to extend his trip - and mainly because the food had been on sale. He also knew to prepare for more than needed when in the wilderness, so he had enough beer and meat to sustain him for quite a while. He left the whiskey at home this time.

Carlton Lassiter didn’t show it often, but fear defined his life. It was one of the useful emotions he could channel into justice.

Fear fueled him to act, it made him sharp and mean at times. Fear put him on high alert, driving him to put guns in bowls of nuts and in his hi-fi in his house. Drove him to bring weapons on a vacation and extra food because being prepared was the only option to have. 

It was fear during the Yang case that made him listen to Spencer’s instructions to stand down, to back off and let him handle it, and it was the right thing to do. 

Shawn Spencer tracked down Santa Barbara’s most notorious serial killer, saved his mother, and astounded him and the whole police force at every turn. And then he had a date that very night, while Carlton was left to process the insane Yang woman and finagle a statement out of her while he wrestled with the idea that there was more to Spencer than a pretty face and annoying personality.

That minor realization, that acceptance that Spencer was an important part of his life, that Lassiter cared for him more than just an annoyance like he’d led everyone (including himself) to believe for years, it rocked him hard. 

And only got worse from there. 

Carlton kicked off his shoes and, for lack of a more dignified term, flopped onto the bed, exhausted. 

_ This week away better work _ .


	2. Intrusion

He must’ve fallen asleep because when he next opens his eyes it’s much darker. The second thing he notices is a sound - a scrape coming from the front porch. 

Instantly, Lassiter is on his feet and on alert. He takes his main weapon from the shelf and approaches the door, listening for any nuance or intent in the noises that continue. Out here it could be anything from wildlife to squatters, any level of danger. 

Part of him delighted in how quickly he had the opportunity to draw his weapon on this vacation, but a bigger part of him was just exhausted. 

_Can’t I just have a break?_

The scraping got louder then stopped abruptly. Lassiter took a position by the door, hand reaching for the knob and ready to unlock and open the door in case he needed to. Whatever was out there was on the other side of the door. 

Lassiter took a breath, and just as he was about to announce himself a loud bang sounded at the door. 

Actually, it was more of a _shave and a hair-cut_ style knock, and -

“Lassie!”

_Son of a bitch._

“You in there? Let me in! It’s cold! I’m freezing my little Spencers off out here!”

_God, if you’re listening, smite him or me right now. I’m not picky._

The knocking continued as Lassie briefly considered using his weapon after all, but instead resigned himself to whatever bullshit Spencer had dragged up with him. 

Of course he was here. Of course he couldn’t have a second of peace without that frustrating imbecile infringing on it. 

“Lasssssiiiiieeeeee I’m hooooome-“

He cut off Spencer’s yelling lest he attract wolves and opened the door. 

“Lassie-face! I’ve missed you!”

Carlton didn’t let him inside. “It’s been less than 24 hours since I last had the displeasure.” 

“I know! Ages! Jules is gone, Gus is _taking a vacation from dead bodies -_ whatever that’s supposed to mean - with his girlfriend, and you left me all alone!”

Lassiter just stared, unamused, as Spencer seemingly vibrated with energy, bouncing back and forth as he blocked the way inside. 

How did an adult man have so much energy? They weren’t that far apart in age, but just looking at Spencer for too long sometimes made him tired. He waited another minute, the faint glow of the light behind him barely lighting the porch. He noted the pickup in the wind and the redder-than-usual face before him. No doubt a storm was approaching, and with the drop in temperature and winds it would likely be a big one. 

Just great. 

Spencer finally settled into something approaching a human disposition and let a shiver rip through him. It was pathetic enough that Lassiter felt bad enough to let him inside, cold himself. 

“Thanks Lassie, I didn’t bring the right gear to sleep with the bears tonight.”

Lassiter shook his head and moved to the fireplace. “Why are you here, Spencer?” His voice sounded more defeated than he’d like, but he was too tired to care. 

“I divined that you were lonely, fine Lass, and I simply couldn’t let that happen! What would you do without me, up here all alone?” Spencer replied, poking around the small cabin as he spoke.

A bubble of delayed rage came to surface in Lassiter’s gut and he snapped at his unwanted guest as he set up the fire. 

“I came up here to have some _peace and quiet._ Leave, Spencer. I know you don’t understand social cues, so I’ll make it clear. You. Are. Not. Wanted. Here.”

The fire started with a soft _woosh_ and with it left the last of Lassiter’s will to fight. Spencer was silent - for the first time in his life, probably. Carlton stood and turned to the fridge, not acknowledging the presence of another person in his immediate vicinity.

Quietly, Spencer’s voice broke the silence without his previous enthusiasm. 

“No can do Lassafrass - the wind was so bad the last stretch that I nearly flew off my bike. There’s no way I’d get out of here alive. So. Get used to it, you’ve got a new roomie.” 

Carlton rolled his eyes. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t manage more than crossing his arms and staring at the fire below him. 

“Plus it’s probably gonna rain tonight, and the dirt part of the dirt road probably won’t be good with the bike, because mud and traction and all that. Learned that the hard way.”

Carlton didn’t move aside from a sigh. If he waited much longer he cringed to think what lengths Spencer would go to to get attention. 

“I’ll radio the rangers in the morning to see about road conditions. Tonight you can sleep on the rug. Quietly. Then you go.”

“Thank you, Lassa-frass,” he said in a tone like he’d been wronged by a manager at a Macy’s. “A little cooperation is all I ask.”

Lassiter spun on him. “No, you didn’t _ask_ anything, Spencer. You came up here to annoy the hell out of me because you have no respect for anyone’s privacy and no life of your own.” Lassiter may actually kill him this time. It was eighteen steps too far, and more than he usually has to put up with him. 

“Oh come on Lassie! This’ll be fun! A sleepover!”

“No, Spencer. At best this is a hostage situation.” He might as well have axed through the door with a “ _Here’s Johnny!,”_ at how Lassiter felt in this particular moment. Except he’s not crying in a corner like Shelley Duvall with a knife, he’s trying to resist picking up his gun again.

There was a beat of silence and Lassiter felt the air shift and charge with tension.

“What’s your deal, Lassiter?” Spencer snapped.  
He saw _red_ , renewed with anger. “What’s _my_ deal? Are you _serious_?” 

“Yeah, man. You’re acting like a real dick.”

Lassiter threw out his arms. “ _And why would that be_ ? You constantly harass me at work, undermine my authority, make me look like an ass in front of my peers and subordinates and the general public, mock me endlessly, and _I’m the dick_?”

Spencer opened his mouth but Lassiter cut him off. 

“I take a week off of work - no, actually, I’m _forced_ to take a week off of work because you have worn me down to the point where I’m a danger at work and the chief had to kick me out, and if that’s not even enough! Then you have to follow me as I run away from you to the woods to get some semblance of peace for the first time in four years-”

“Lassie -”

“And then you have the _gall_ to ask me what my deal is?”

“Lassie, I -”

“You’re my deal, Spencer! It’s you! It’s you who’s been ruining my already shitty, divorced, not good enough life!” Lassiter stopped, panting at yelling and red in the face. He couldn’t be in that room for one more second so he grabbed a flashlight and stalked out the back door to go to the, thankfully modern, outhouse. 

Halfway there he noted the dramatic drop in temperature from before, the wind whipping through the trees. How fitting.

There was just no way to win. He couldn’t beat him, he couldn’t join him. He could refute the idiot savant at a crime scene, but that led him to look like the idiot. Or, as he tried recently, he could try to outpace the freak squad with an insane, from the gut theory about a knife wound among a shark attack, he still lost because he couldn’t hold on to the insanity with both hands. 

Carlton Lassiter prided himself as a man of facts. Facts kept the world straight, they defined the gray area between right and wrong, they kept the world spinning. Facts tied the criminal to the crime, but time and time again the frou-frou shit that Spencer pulled made difficult cases breeze by like nothing. 

Lassiter hated him for it. He loved him for it too. And that drove him crazy.

There was no way he was a psychic. All that crap didn’t exist. Lassiter could respect and appreciate a belief system like a reasonable person - hell, he was raised in a strict Catholic one - but that didn’t mean any of it was real. They just came with more rules and a strict morality, not ghosts telling an idiot about a grisly murder so he could be obnoxious about solving it. 

Obviously, Shawn Spencer was highly intelligent and observant. He had a cop for a father and a psychologist with an aural eidetic memory for a mother. That kind of parentage didn’t result in a normal kid. If he could have proved that Spencer was lying his ass off to the SBPD three and a half years ago, he’d would be sitting in jail right now. 

But now was too late. No one would care to listen to his theory, and even if he outed Shawn officially as a liar no one would prosecute. His lies were a gray area - divining clues was just another way of saying he observed them.

That didn’t mean that watching him _prance_ around a crime scene wasn’t annoying as hell

Mild and major existential crises aside, it wasn’t the worst year he ever had. That was probably the year Victoria and him were so at each other’s throats and not in a good way anymore. This year was maybe third on the list, closing in on second as he had to watch Spencer fawn all over the Lytar woman for months. He’d mention their dates every time he came in to steal another case from him, and the most obnoxious part was always when he’d get twitchy around O’Hara. 

Months this lasted. Months of _Abigail that, Jules this, oh look at me tragically flirting with two beautiful successful women while I outsmart the SBPD once again._

_Tragic my ass._

Then again, Spencer never cut him out of that cycle either. He was the one he wouldn’t pull any stops with, not just flirting but full mocking compliments. _Handsome Carly. Big and strong. Smart head detective._

All of it serving only to make him more insane, and here he was stuck with him indefinitely, alone and isolated in the woods. 

Just before he got back to the cabin, the first fat drop of rain hit him square in the face. 

_Perfect._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again to @otava for their beta work and suggestions! all remaining mistakes are mine.


	3. Chance

Shawn won’t lie, he didn’t figure it out for a while. Really, he didn’t figure it out until he was suddenly in the middle of a fake western town called Old Sonora and Sheriff Hank reminisced about ‘Binky.’

 _Binky_. He’d have to pull that one out more often. 

But really - the whole case was an eye-opener to Lassie’s past and psyche. Shawn thought he knew plenty about the grouchy detective, but Hank’s case opened a can of worms and they’d been… squirming all over the place all gross like worms do. Lassie had asked him and Gus for a _favor_ and it didn’t involve jumping off of a bridge. It was all personal and important and stuff, and that’s how Shawn treated it. Importantly. 

Dressing up as Sheriff Shawn was one of his top five Cool-Things-He-Got-To-Do-On-A-Case to date, even if he had to deal with the smells and sights of living in a fictional, crumbling tourist attraction. Even more interesting was learning about Lassie’s childhood, which wasn’t strictly as Catholic and Repressed and Boring as he’d assumed. 

Old Sonora wasn’t the first close-to-home case he worked, but it was revealing as hell. His own father of all people had to go on a rant about how his emotions were all entangled and messing with him solving the case because Lassie was his _friend_ and the case was important to him.

Of course Lassie was his friend. Against his will, maybe - and maybe more friend-enemies, frenemies, eniends, whatever. Shawn teased him at crime scenes, Lassiter shoved him into walls. It worked. 

So, yeah, it was in Old Sonora that Shawn realized that Lassie was more than just a workplace proximity associate and probably more than a friend. Or at least he wanted him to be. Because what he realized on that case was that he _liked_ Lassiter. Like, liked him in a way he hadn’t liked another guy since Jamie during that summer spent working at a goat-exclusive petting zoo in Montana.

Wild. 

After that revelation, seeing Lassie face off the bad guy in the middle of the town like he was in a real life Western... Shawn never had a cowboy kink before but _damn_ if that didn’t stick in his mind for a while. 

Shawn couldn’t help but up the ante after Old Sonora. He’d always bothered Lassie before - sat in his lap during visions, mocked him by flirting and deflecting. But now he could barely keep his hands to himself. So he decided on a game plan of more touching and being a general nuisance, because that was the only way he knew how to flirt. 

Eventually he’d have to make a move, because Lassiter wouldn’t recognize a guy making a move on him if it hit him in the ass. Shawn was sure of that because he had slapped his ass a couple times as he walked past him without response.

-

Lassie was having a rough year, and Shawn felt himself looking at him more and more, and wondering if he was okay, and trying to figure out how to work in a hug during a psychic vision.

The SBPD softball game he and Gus wormed their way into was excruciating. He couldn’t focus and kept messing up the game because Lassie looked too _cute_ in his softball outfit ( _“It’s a uniform, Spencer! Regulation!”)_ He looked good being all goofy and athletic, and Shawn nearly missed the gunman going after him later that day. 

He tried not to think about how Lassie nearly got shot later during that case, that he almost _died_ , like execution style _murdered right in front of everyone_. 

Talk about escalation from work friends who annoyed each other to being terrified at their imminent death directly before your eyes. It wasn’t easy to go back to harmless flirting.

Shawn cursed his own memory of that day, almost as bad as when he thought that crazy dude had killed Gus back at Camp Tikihama. His “gift” wasn’t always a good thing when it came to visual memories. 

But after that whole mess, it felt like Lassie was starting to loosen up a little, maybe even flirting back. Even if Shawn was reading too much hope into it, Lassie was different. He pranked him with a fake case - that turned out to be a real case but still - and then sent a guy who claimed to be a werewolf to their office. 

Then Shawn got shot, and everything changed again. 

He tried not to think about that too much, either, even if the memory never really left him alone. Between seeing the scar on his chest every so often to the occasional slight pain, deep in the muscle to remind him, Shawn was constantly reminded about what happened. 

At least Abigail waited a little while to dump him from Africa. That was nice of her. But he was straight up not having a good time after that.

Crap had escalated and escalated until Shawn felt like he could snap. He knew what it was like to feel overloaded - his jokes about ADHD came from decades of experience, and his abilities didn’t help the whole thing anyway. In the past, when things got to be too much he would just move on to someplace new and put it all behind him. But he couldn’t leave Psych and Gus and everyone behind, not now. 

That didn’t mean he didn’t need a break, though.

He often didn’t sleep well, his mind too busy racing through what had happened that day, or dealing with intrusive thoughts of counting hats in a room or bad memories. 

Lassie on his knees in a graveyard, gun to the back of his head, often played a role in the PowerPoint of horrific shit he’d seen this year, right along every time Gus had been in danger, his mother with a bomb in her arms, dead and mutilated bodies, and his own horror show of a gunshot wound and kidnapping. 

It was a gift, and a curse, and all that. 

Luckily, the stars kind of aligned for a break without him running off for an impromptu vacation. Gus was busy with pretending his new girlfriend was working out, and Jules was gone to a conference to empower her or something. That meant no cases from the chief because Juliet was gone, and there was no way she was desperate or crazy enough to pair him up with just Lassie on a case. 

Although you wouldn’t have caught him complaining. 

But no, even Lassie decided to read the room and get out for a much-needed break. 

The idea of a break sounded nice - some time to himself for his own shenanigans, no Gus cramping his style, but within the space of an afternoon he was going stir crazy. His only option was Henry, but he’d rather watch paint dry than go over there voluntarily where he’d probably be forced to watch paint dry while Henry nagged at him about his life choices. 

So he picked the only person he could follow and bother for fun and potential personal gain. This was his chance to corner Lassiter outside of his natural habitat where he thought he had the upper hand and try to make a move or figure out if he was even welcome to make one.

A fantastic idea, the best one he’d had in ages - and then he got stuck in the cabin with a man who clearly hates him and his very presence. 

Excellent. 

-

Finding out where Lassie had run off to was easy enough, and going up to the cabin was scenic. It was nice to get out on his bike again and not deal with Santa Barbara traffic. 

He’d packed a backpack with a few shirts and some snacks that he knew Lassiter wouldn’t dream of taking with him, and a few other things he deemed necessary for Operation Woo Lassie And Kiss His Mouth With My Mouth. 

He hadn't quite decided on the name. 

While he didn’t expect a warm welcome, Shawn also didn’t think that they’d so quickly descend into a yelling match. Part of him did want to go when Lassiter yelled at him too, but it really was too windy to go on his bike, and he figured that he might as well try this thing with Lassie while he could. 

After Lassie stormed outside, Shawn started making his bed on the floor. The fire was warm, and he was cold and tired. He’d slept in worse places. 

He shifted around until comfortable, even as the chill from the floor made his shoulder hurt where he’d been shot, and resolved to figure this out in the morning. Lassie came back in soon enough and they both were silent as he prepared for bed. 

If Lassie wanted him to act serious for once, that’s what he’d get. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was the rain starting, echoing in its loudness so far out in the wilderness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks as always to @otava for betaing!


	4. Truce

Lassiter woke to the soothing sound of birds chirping and the fresh scent of a rainy morning. In total, he had seventeen consecutive seconds of peace before he woke up entirely and remembered not just where he was, but who he was with. 

_Spencer._

He kept his eyes closed, trying to prolong the silence before he had to deal with his unwanted guest. Recalling the night before, he felt a little regret at yelling at Spencer so much. Even if his coming up here was a huge annoyance and invasion of privacy, it wasn’t anything new. If anything, Lassiter should’ve prepared for this. 

In a better world, this situation would be great. Alone in a cabin for a week with someone he… cared about. But that was a pipe dream. 

He was projecting when he snapped at Spencer. Whatever the case, Lassiter knew that last night’s yelling was just him releasing his pent up anger and frustration on the nearest person. Or at least that’s what his therapist told him he was prone to… _after_ he yelled at her for a solid fifteen minutes and insulted her hairstyle and shoe choice after she asked about his _childhood_. 

Whatever. The point was that he now felt even worse with the added guilt of last night and, hell, he’d made Spencer sleep on the floor, too. 

Never let it be said that Lassiter didn’t deserve the honorific ‘Bastard.’ 

He’d never been alone around Spencer long enough to feel the need to apologize. The fake psychic always had someone around him to joke off any real argument or hurt, always had Guster or another cop to look at and charm. But now it was just the two of them, and that felt different. Potentially. Only if Spencer knocked it off for a minute and they could have an actual discussion. Or even silence - he’d take silence over more fighting. 

Taking a deep breath, and another for posterity, Lassiter opened his eyes and rose from bed. He took a moment to rub the sleep from his face before looking up and seeing… an empty room. 

A second glance revealed that Spencer’s bag and shoes were still there, so he was likely outside somewhere. 

Lassiter quickly got dressed and followed the enticing smell of still-hot coffee to the kitchenette area. He filled a mug, taking his sugar and cream as normal, and walked out to the front porch. 

“Spencer,” he greeted the seated man, taking in the surroundings. 

The forest was soaked, the dirt road leading to the property already muddy. He could see Shawn’s bike just behind his car. The rain was still falling and the sun lit the world from behind a mask of overcast sky. Lassiter reveled in the way his lungs accepted fresh mountain air. 

“Lassie,” Spencer replied. 

Lassiter waited a beat to hear whatever nonsense Spencer would come up with in the morning, but all he got was silence. He turned and saw the younger man sitting in one of the chairs on the covered porch, sipping at his own cup of coffee and wrapped up in the quilt he’d slept with the night before. 

At the prolonged silence, Lassiter sat in the chair next to him. _Don’t escalate. Continue the peace, Carlton._

“Thanks for making coffee,” he said after a while. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shawn shrug, then wince and rub at his shoulder. He turned toward him and noticed the furrow in his brow, signaling that he was in pain. “You okay there Spencer?” 

Shawn shrugged with only one shoulder in response. “Sweet as a peach, Lassie-bear. Hey, do you think there are bears out here? Should we put the food up in a tree? Related - did you byhaps bring any peaches? Or - Ooo! I’d kill for a peach Nehi right now!” 

Lassiter sighed and held himself back from snapping again. Instead he drank his still warm coffee and tried to relax again. He was roused from his meditative stare into the woods by Spencer’s movement. It looked like he was trying to stretch his shoulder or arm out and not having much luck. 

Counting the handful of minutes they’d been quiet as a win for the moment, Lassiter couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

“Can’t you be serious for one second? You’re obviously in pain. What dumb thing to lie about —“ 

Spencer waved him off again. “Nothing a quick hug couldn’t heal, Lassieface.” Spencer made eyes at him and Lassiter felt his blood pressure rising. 

“Spencer. _Shawn_ . Stop. This is a genuine question. Are you okay? Because we are many miles from help and you look like you’re actually hurt.” _Okay. Yes. He was worried. A little._

The question made Spencer pause, probably because of the use of his first name. Lassiter hasn’t said it very often. He didn’t know when he’d started thinking of him more as Shawn than Spencer, anyway. And he didn’t want to dissect that in front of the man in question either.

“Genuine question?” At Lassiter’s nod, he continued. “My shoulder, the muscle where I got shot... aches. When it gets all cold or rainy or if I sleep on the floor after a long bike ride in cold and rainy conditions. It’ll be fine.”

Lassiter nodded and swallowed his guilt for later. “Thank you. That sounds… not fun. I think I have some Advil if you want it.” 

Shawn made a noise of acknowledgement, then he made a face like he was holding something back.

“What?” Lassiter asked. 

“Why do you care Lassie? You’re supposed to hate me. That’s our thing.”

It was Lassiter’s turn to brush aside the question. It was too early in the morning for this, and he couldn’t see their conversation going anywhere good. The key to their continued peace was short exchanges until Shawn could go back to Santa Barbara.

The rain poured a little harder at that thought, and he hoped the road wouldn’t just wash away in the onslaught. . Lassiter looked at the road that was quickly becoming a large muddy mess. He wasn’t even sure that his car could make it without getting stuck. 

“No, Lassie, new thing - genuine question time. I get one too!”

Lassiter sighed and gave up trying to curb the situation. They were both too stubborn to do anything else. “I don’t hate you, Spencer.” 

“All the evidence points to the contrary.”

Lassiter rolled his eyes in response. “Believe it or not… I respect you too much to hate you. Am I annoyed by you? Constantly. Do I think you’re an embarrassment to the SBPD? Yes.. But I don’t actively want you gone.” 

“Thanks Lassie. Although, I know you want me gone from _here_ , unless you were lying last night. I checked and I don’t have cell service up here, but if you have a radio I can see if a ranger could have a cab sent up or something, and I could hike to the main road.”

Lassiter raised his eyebrow at Shawn’s tone. He sounded resigned. Neither man made a move, and the silence stretched between them once again. 

Shawn couldn’t just leave. He’d never allow him to hike through the woods or even down a muddy path alone - with his luck he’d hurt himself and it would be Lassiter’s fault. Call it fate, call it frustration, but he was stuck here for at least a few days. 

“The roads were bad when I came up and they’re worse after the storm last night,” started Lassiter. “There could be trees down or flooding. I doubt anything but an ATV could get through now, and this isn’t a rescue mission.”

Shawn made eye contact with him for the first time that morning. A beat passed, then, “Does that mean I can stay?” The question is uncharacteristically both serious and quiet.

“Yes, Spencer. Stay. Why not. You came all the way up here to bother me, so now you’re getting your chance.” Lassiter pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why me, anyway? Don’t you have other people to mess with?”

“Not in particular, Lass. Gus has a girlfriend he’s trying to be serious with, which will inevitably turn too serious and he’ll back out, or they’ll be married by the time I get back home - that’s happened before, you know.”

Lassiter ignored the implication. “What about your father?”

“Pshaw, no thank you.” Shawn shook his head vehemently. "Not to steal your joke, Lass, but I would rather never eat pineapple again than hang out with Henry willingly." 

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” Lassiter asked, not entirely sure why. Maybe it was the novelty of having a conversation with Shawn that consisted of more than insults and yelling.

“Who, me and Gus? Despite the homoerotic overtones, I promise we’re just friends. The best of friends. BFFLs. Sorry to disappoint your fantasies -”

“Spencer! No, not -” Lassiter sighed and refocused. “You and your father. One day he’s helping you, the next he’s your worst enemy. What gives?”

Shawn deflated from his rant. “Genuine question?” 

That was when Lassiter formed a little hope that maybe - just maybe - this week or however long they’d be isolated together wouldn’t just be for out-insulting each other. Maybe they could actually… get to know each other. Maybe that could finally extinguish the pathetic torch he’d held for Spencer this long. _Or maybe it’ll fan the flames… shut up!_ “Yes.”

Spencer let out a sigh. “Oh, man. I don’t know where to begin with that one. Is it too early to drink?” He shook his head. “Congrats, Lassie. You’ve leveled up in friendship, unlocking my tragic background. If you want to get into it, childhood seems as good a place as any.”

He looked over to see if Lassiter was listening and received a slight nod. 

“Henry started training me to be a super cop when I was seven, maybe even before that. You guys know that, but not the details. Weekend and after school activities included father son bonding such as _here’s how to escape out of a locked trunk_ , _this is how not to make noise sneaking through a house_ , _you’ll get the football back when you can solve the puzzle I made_ , and a fan favorite - _hide the Easter eggs five feet underground and yell when it takes me three days to work out where they are_.” 

Lassiter knew his jaw was dropped, but he was genuinely shocked. That was his childhood? No wonder he acted like a child now - when he could. He didn’t know what to say, but Shawn continued, not looking at him as he talked.

“And that’s not even to mention the time he had me arrested in high school, frequently humiliated me in public, withheld food until I learned a new skill, didn’t talk to me for several years, blames me for his failed marriage and early retirement, and still manages to work his way into every facet of my life no matter how hard I try to get away. He turned helicopter parenting into military attack drone parenting.”

Shawn stopped for a second and took a breath. “So yeah. Complicated doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“Jesus, Spencer.” The comment slipped out, but it summed up his reaction well.

Shawn waved his hand at Lassiter and slumped back down in the chair. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. Your dad’s a hero cop, you’re lucky that he cared so much when you were a kid, that he paid attention. It wasn’t always the best.”

“I wouldn’t go that far to patronize you, Shawn. Sounds more like child abuse than anything else,” replied Lassiter, sounding more concerned than he particularly wanted to, but that was a lot to unpack. 

Shawn shook his head, taking another drag of coffee, and in that moment Lassiter saw him in a completely different light. Shawn was a little more human, a little more connected to his own plane of existence instead of bouncing on the walls of immaturity. 

“It’s not all bad,” he said. “He does care, he just shows it weird. Spencer men aren’t prone to genuine emotion - me and pops just ended up on opposite ends of the same spectrum.” 

Lassiter let that comment sit for a minute. He hoped that he wasn’t the first person Shawn told about this, and he suddenly viewed his relationship with Guster in a different light. If they really knew each other through all that, it was no wonder they were so close now. 

He also thought about Shawn’s _genuine emotion_ comment. It meant he was aware of his… childish tendencies more than he let on. Lassiter had seen him flip that switch before, when cases got tense and dangerous, but not any other time. Not until now.

He didn’t know how long he was in his own head, but a shiver roused him back to reality. The wind was picking up, blowing the rain more at them than before. 

“We should go in, get a refill,” he said, partly to catch Shawn’s attention. He looked zoned out too. 

Shawn got up with him and they walked inside. Lassiter refilled the small pot and heard Shawn start to poke at the embers in the fireplace. 

“You know, I figured your dad was a bastard to grow up with after I first went fishing with him. But the reality…” he trailed off, not knowing what to say but feeling the need to say something.

Shawn added another couple logs to the fire and stoked it back to life. “Makes sense doesn’t it? The resident nutjob has daddy issues. Don’t let me get started on how my psychologist mother left us when I was young and only after about a decade of nightly screaming matches with my father,” Spencer replied, trying to sound joking even with his admission.

“Ouch. Makes me feel lucky that my dad just left without a word when I was eight, my mother is a lesbian, and I grew up the middle child in a family so Catholic I feel guilty just taking up space,” Lassiter fired back in a similar tone. He owed Shawn something in return.

“No wonder you’re so normal.” Spencer grinned then, and Carlton couldn’t help but mirror it, just a little. “That’s enough bonding, I think! What would you say to playing a little Six Card Susan?” Shawn said cheerfully, nearly bouncing again. 

Lassiter furrowed his brow. “Do you mean Five Card Stud?”

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

The afternoon passed quickly after that, nicely even. Spencer beat him several times at cards and they talked about everything but family issues. Lassiter was surprised to find he was enjoying himself around Shawn. They were… _bonding_ , over things like playing softball and cop movies from the eighties. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, having Shawn around this week. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you @otava for beta work!


	5. Trust

Shawn was in hour twenty-seven of phase two of Operation Earn Lassie’s Trust Then Totally Do It, formerly Operation Woo Lassie And Kiss His Mouth With My Mouth, and it was going well. Phase one was easy enough - find and follow the target. Phase two was more… delicate.   


Not that he’d followed any actual part of his plan, though that was probably the reason it was working out so well. If Shawn remembered correctly, and he  _ always  _ did, his original plan included annoying Lassie into snapping by plying him with wit, being his suave sexy self, and something to do with a metaphor about grabbing life by the pineapples. 

Yeah, this way worked  _ way _ better. So far. 

Turns out, if you’re honest with someone who you like, it’s a great way to gain their trust. Lassie was the one who brought up the concept of  _ genuine questions _ anyway, and it was genius of him. Not that Lassie isn’t usually a genius of course, he is in his own Sheriff in a Lawless Town That Totally Respects His Sternbush way. But not usually in the whole… bonding emotionally way. At least not with him.    


Contrary to universal belief, Shawn was very self-aware of his whole… thing. He gladly acted out and up and sideways every second, because being genuine had never gotten him anywhere besides not believed. In his case, putting on a show for the people around him just seemed to work better than telling the truth. 

Henry’s voice echoed in his mind:  _ When people laugh, they let their guard down and you’re in control. That may be the one advantage you got, kid - put your major character flaws to use.  _ He was nine when that particular lesson was thrown at him, and it wasn’t bad advice. Bad parenting maybe, but his charm had gotten him dozens of jobs, dates, and out of countless bad situations. 

The fact that the same charm usually got him into those situations was a given, but still. 

This little trek to the woods was different, and called for a different approach than his usual performance. On the ride up, he nixed the psychic stuff for the duration of talking to Lassie - it always made the man combative and dismissive which was a no-go for the success of the operation. 

Dropping the rest was hard. It wasn’t all an act, of course. Shawn was a person who truly saw the joke in every situation. Practicing the whole  _ laugh or cry  _ idea from a young age turned into his personality, and it was a part of him. But that didn’t mean he didn’t force it on occasion. And if those occasions usually involved high-stress, dangerous, or emotional situations, well… he was only human. 

So yeah, night one of invading Lassie’s vacay had not gone well, hence the yelling and the sleeping on the floor. But it may have been some good thing in disguise. His achy shoulder had made it a lot easier to just be honest with Lassie - to answer genuine questions and talk about  _ Henry  _ and his  _ childhood _ \- stuff that no one but Gus really knew about.    


Just getting that in the open was a huge shift, and it worked! The potential for it all going off the rails was growing the longer it went well, but day one seemed to be ending on a good note. 

They had set up a campfire in the small clearing out back, twenty some feet from the cabin. The rain had stopped that afternoon, sometime during their rounds of Go Fish that somehow morphed into a trivia match about Clint Eastwood movies, but it was still cold enough that Shawn was wearing all his layers and a jacket out of Lassie’s car that smelled like him.    


Lassie had taken the dishes in, leaving Shawn outside to poke at the fire a bit. They’d made a decent dinner out of the steaks and side dishes Lassie had brought up, and Shawn was actually enjoying himself. Sure, he’d had a load of ulterior motives for coming up here, but as he stared at the fire after a good day he wasn’t so sure about the plan to blurt out his feelings. 

Was it the right move, or would it disrupt everything they’d built that day - that they’d built for years? If it backfired, it would be a hell of a lot of trust out the window, maybe even their entire friendship. Shawn couldn’t bear that thought. 

But did that really mean he had to keep it all to himself? A huge part of him wanted nothing more than to charge back inside and kiss Lassie, to hell with it all. 

Shawn closed his eyes and took a deep breath, conscious of the cool mountain air and the smell of the bonfire before him. He couldn’t mess this up, but he couldn’t keep it bottled inside. The possibility of Lassie and him… it meant too much. His only option was to try, and he winced at the thought, being  _ subtle _ and taking it  _ slow _ . 

Yuck. 

Truth - truth was the thing that got him this far, that got him enjoying an entire day with Lassie. More truth would get him further, right? That seemed easy enough. But what about the ultimate truth, looming over his head like some kind of… big, looming thing. 

The truth of him not being psychic.    


Shawn knew that Lassie knew that he wasn’t telling the truth about being a psychic, but it was a lie universally accepted around the station. It was his and Gus’ career, it was his whole life - how could he just blurt it out and confirm all of Lassie’s theories? 

It’s not like he’d been keeping up the act that day either. Not once had he pretended to be psychic other than a few obvious jokes when he kept winning at cards. But Shawn didn’t know if he was ready to really tell Lassie - not yet. Not before they had one whole good day together. 

Lassie interrupted his train of thought, bringing two more beers with him. They sat in silence by the campfire, close to each other and upwind to avoid the smoke. At one point, Shawn knocked his head back and looked at the sky. 

“Holy hell. That’s a lot of stars.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lassie look up too, and suddenly he was  _ stargazing  _ with _ Lassie.  _ Shawn definitely had daydreams that went down this route, more than once, but they usually started with a little more hanky panky than what had actually happened. Which was none, unless he counted the… emotional stuff that morning. 

_ Ew, feelings _ . 

Beer. They had beer with their dinner. Beer was manly, Lassie was manly - it was turning into a distinctly manly night, where two many men looked up into the vast cosmos with a shared wonder. 

It was romantic as hell. Shawn nearly reached out to find Lassie’s hand and hold it like they were thirteen and on their first date ever when Lassie broke the silence. 

“Hank taught me to camp when I was a kid.”

Shawn flashbacked to the case in Old Sonora. “The whole beans and campfire routine? He pulled that on Gus and me too. Very  _ Blazing Saddles _ .” He looked over at Lassie, watching him watch the sky.

“Oh yeah,” Lassie replied. “All of it - stargazing, sleeping with a rope around you for snakes in the open air, how to make a campfire.”

“That actually sounds nice, Lassie,” Shawn said genuinely. 

“It was. Most of my time at Old Sonora was either fun or educational - usually both.”

Shawn finished his beer and looked back up at the stars. Genuine conversation, getting to know each other.  _ Keep it going, Shawn. _ “My dad taught me and Gus how to camp, too.”

Lassie let out a laugh. “You guys really grew up together, didn’t you?”

“Oh yeah, practically from the crib! But our outdoor training was more of a survivalist, worse-case scenario thing. Henry would leave us in the woods to find our way out, one time he did it overnight. We sure learned a lot then.”

Shawn felt Lassie’s eyes on him and wondered if he revealed too much. Was he playing the  _ my childhood was messed up too so let’s make out  _ card too hard?

“Holy hell, Spencer. No wonder you’re so…”

“So what? Dashing?” Shawn turned and met Lassie’s gaze. 

“So  _ you _ about things.”

Shawn laughed. “It’s the psychic-ness, dear Lass. Makes the world go round and make my hair fan-tabulous.”

If Lassiter could make an eyeroll audible, it would’ve been screeching through the mountains like a banshee at that moment. 

“I’m sure that’s what all the ladies say, Spencer.”

“You’d be surprised - or maybe not!” Shawn laughed a little too loud for the evening, breaking his earnest-ness rule just a little. The nervousness was overruling it. “The ladies love the hair and the-” he cut himself off, doing a show of putting his finger to his temple and pretending to divine something. 

“Just like a parlor trick can draw a crowd for half a minute,” he jibed.

“You’re not far off, Lassie.” Shawn sighed and put down his head, staring back at the dwindling fire. “It is a good way to pick up women at bars, but usually they just lead me to their little group of friends like I’m the sideshow act you believe me to be.”

“You have your moments, Spencer.”

Shawn just kept talking, knocking out a subcategory of his Plan to Kiss that Strong Irish Face - making sure Lassie knew he swung both ways. Or, any way, really. “And guys at bars just turn any psychic vibes I have into some dirty joke or astrology thing, but at least they usually leave the bar with me. But no worries Lassieface, I still get mine. Well. I have in the past. Sort of.” 

There was a beat of silence as Shawn watched Lassie absorb that bit of news that had him worried for a second, but he didn’t need to.

“Aren’t you still seeing that teacher chick?”

“Abigail ran away to Africa - something about enriching children’s lives or some other such nonsense. Plus, turns out that having a boyfriend who could get shot and kidnapped at any point kind of ruined it for her.”

Lassie nodded at that and tipped the rest of his beer back. “This kind of work isn’t good for dating.” Shawn watched as Lassie contemplated saying something and was relieved when he kept talking. “Victoria thought she knew what she was getting into, but the first time I got shot-”   


“You got WHAT?”

Lassie jumped in his seat and looked at Shawn, raising one eyebrow. “It was just a scrape, but she freaked at the hospital. After that it was just... different. She didn’t get the commitment, with or without the danger.”

“You are definitely committed, Lassarino. Probably the most committed cop in California, maybe outside of my dad.” Shawn saw the corner of Lassie’s mouth quirk up at the compliment, and he felt warm inside at the response. “Seriously, Carly. You have a whole wall in your apartment dedicated to criminals. You probably read case files over breakfast - and I know you talk about cases on dates.”

“And it ruined my marriage.” Lassie didn’t seem to be upset at the concept, more like he was accepting of it as fact. “I actually learned a lot from your dad when I was a rookie.”

Shawn thought back to the night his own father arrested him - he was sure it was Lassie at the station who almost booked him, but it was so long ago. “Yeah, well his dedication to the job didn’t exactly help his marriage either.”

“Is that why your mom left?” Lassie asked, then immediately looked like he didn’t mean to ask such a personal question. 

Shawn waved his concern off. “Played a part, for sure. But my mom,” he sighed. “I think she just didn’t like being tied down. She married too young, had a kid who was a  _ lot _ to handle, and was more interested in her job. I thought it was Henry’s fault for a while, but mom left us. It’s probably why I’m a commitment-phobe, if we’re being all psychoanalytical about it.”

“Eh, you’re probably on the right track with that one, Spencer. Love never works out in the end. In my experience they’re either too close to you, or they end up being criminals.”

Shawn thought about the fact that he and Lassie were talking about their dating lives for a second, accepted the turn of events, and moved on. Lassie must be referring to his ex-partner Lucinda and all the weird dates he’d managed to go on since.

“Is that why you tell the dead clown story and run off all your dates?”

“Oh not you too - that’s a perfectly good story!”

“No, it makes sense! If your date can’t handle a dark story with plenty of potential for fascination or dark humor, which are two things you need when you’re near this profession, then they won’t cut it out for the long term.”

Lassie was silent for a second. “You’re not wrong, Spencer.”

“So you haven’t had the best track record of dates,” said Shawn, trying to keep the conversation going.

“Hey, being a cop and trying to have a social life isn’t exactly easy. Not many can manage it, especially at my level.”

“Not blaming you, Lass, just saying: Rough luck. I for one think dead clowns are hilarious  _ and _ terrifying, and this is coming from a person who didn’t sleep well for a month after watching  _ It  _ as a young impressionable innocent kid.”

“So? I’m not dating you, Spencer.”

“You could be,” he said, then his eyes widened in panic. Too much! Too soon! Run in circles, scream and shout! Covering, Shawn looked wildly at Lassiter then gave him an obnoxious wink. 

Lassie gaped at him. “What?”

Shawn stood and spoke a little too loudly. “Forget it, forget I said anything.”

“I can’t just -” said Lassie with a determination that nearly made Shawn sit back down. 

“Lets go inside. It’s too cold out here, and we’ve been drinking, and… uh, bears!” Shawn doused the fire with the water bucket and turned back to the cabin. Behind him he heard Lassie get up and collect the rest of their trash. 

Shawn made a detour to hit the outhouse first, wanting to go before bed but also needing the space. He easily could’ve turned it into a joke - what had he been thinking? 

On one hand, it was good. The notion of him actually being interested in Lassie was on the table officially. That was what he wanted, right? But he was little-girl panicking about it all! What was Lassie thinking? Was he about to be punched in the face? Or had Lassie finally been swayed by his charm and they were going to spend a magical night together? 

Shawn shook his head and went back to the cabin. Whatever his fate was going to be his future, he couldn’t stay hiding in an outhouse all night. He was getting chilly. 

-

The cabin was dark, only the fire lighting the interior. Lassie had built it up for the night. Shawn caught a glimpse of Lassie’s bare back as he put on his sleep shirt. He waited a second after clicking the back door locked for Lassie to speak, but he didn’t.

Shawn decided to go full defense. “What, we’re just gonna skip right to bedtime? Fine. Let’s just ignore it.”

Shawn went to one of the armchairs where he’d thrown his things that day and took off his jacket. He’d sleep in his clothing since the floor was cold, and he’d probably be awake before Lassie again. Then he could walk his bike down the dirt road in the morning if necessary, and get out of Lassie’s thick, sexy hair. 

“Listen, Spencer. Shawn.” Lassie stood by the bed, and something in the tone of his voice made Shawn meet his eyes. “You can’t sleep on the floor again.”

“What, are you kicking me out?” That would be a low blow, even for Lassie.

“No! I-” Lassie pinched the bridge of his nose. “No. The bed is big enough for two. You shouldn’t hurt your shoulder again.”

Shawn looked at the bed, confused at the direction. It was probably a queen size, which was not the worst possibility for the whole taking it slow thing but still a little cramped. He shook his head, trying to make sense of Lassie - was he just okay with the accidental flirting? Did he not pick up on it at all? 

His mind was made up anyway - his shoulder was still hurting from the previous night on the floor, and this was at least an olive branch or something, and he had to take it.

“Thanks, Lassie. Don’t worry, I’ll follow rollercoaster rules.” Shawn shucked his jeans and walked to the bed in his boxers and long sleeve henley, jumping in and rolling to the side with the wall. 

“You’ll  _ what _ ?” he asked, sliding into the bed next to him. 

Shawn tried to calm down the thrill he felt rising up in him.   
“You know, keep hands inside at all times, no groping fellow passengers, remember to smile for the camera.” Shawn gave a wide smile toward Lassie to finish his joke.

Shawn felt Lassie settle in next to him on his back. It was too dark to really know, but it felt like he was only two inches away. Shawn reveled in the proximity, turning on his side and tucking his knees up just enough to barely brush Lassie’s thigh through his sleep pants.

What a night. 

-

Shawn opened his eyes to darkness, not knowing where he was for a second until everything came rushing back to him. He was in bed, with Lassie. 

Which would explain why his pillow was moving. 

At some point while asleep, Shawn succumbed to his usual limpet tendencies and managed to throw half of his body on Lassie. His right leg was in between Lassies, his arm across his chest, his head on Lassie’s pec. 

It was the best position he’d ever woken up in, ever, with anyone ever. In that moment his indecision was wiped away - he really, really liked Lassie. He wanted to wake up wrapped around him like a magnet every morning ever. 

Lassie twitched under him and Shawn froze. He may have known what he wanted now, but what about his bed partner? This wasn’t even sort of following rollercoaster rules. He moved with Lassie’s chest as he took a deep breath, then flinched slightly at the sudden contact of Lassie’s hand on his back. 

“Did you mean it?” Lassie rumbled underneath him. “Earlier, about the dating thing?”

Shawn was beginning to panic again, but he tried to stick to the present, to the facts. Lassie wasn’t bodily throwing him out the door, or shooting him, or even smothering him with a pillow. He was just asking a question. 

Shawn gathered all his strength and lifted up, not moving from Lassie’s chest but just enough to make out his face in the dim light. “Genuine question?” he breathed.

Lassie nodded, and Shawn moved in to kiss him before he could say anything else.   
And oh, holy mother of pineapples on pizza - kissing Lassie was a dream come true. His lips were soft, but in a strong manly way, and importantly he  _ kissed him back _ . Like, a lot. 

Shawn opened his mouth and Lassie followed, slipping his tongue in to deepen the kiss. He shifted up on Lassie to change his angle and groaned at the movement, his body sliding against the warm form beneath him. 

Lassie moved too, moving his other arm around to Shawn’s back and turning them, reversing their positions on the bed until Lassie was nearly hovering over him. Lassie broke off the kiss and Shawn moaned at the loss, his breath hitting Lassie’s between their faces. 

“Yeah,” Shawn panted. “I’m pretty serious about it.”

“Okay then.” Lassiter nodded above him and they both smiled in the darkness, cut off only when Lassie descended to meet Shawn’s mouth  _ with his mouth _ again. 


	6. Together

When Lassiter rented the cabin for a week’s respite in the wilderness, he hadn’t included  _ have sex with Shawn Spencer  _ on his list of planned activities. He went to the woods to clear his mind and get away from the stress of his job and lack of social life, and now here he was in the early morning of day three of his vacation, getting naked with the object of his frustrations. 

Not that he was complaining. 

Shawn was hot and pliant under him, but very enthusiastic. He had Lassiter’s shirt nearly over his head before he realized it. Lassiter broke off their searing kiss to fling his shirt off, repositioning more over Shawn and shoving the covers down off of them. 

“Hot damn, Lass,” Shawn gasped, running his hands over Lassiter’s bare back and sides. “Who knew you were all muscle-y under those boring suits of yours.” 

Lassiter smiled in the darkness, secretly pleased at Shawn’s remark, and utilized his new trick for getting him to shut up by kissing him. He tucked his hands up under Shawn’s henley, ripping it over his head. He quickly leaned back in, placing a kiss on Shawn’s lips before finally getting to explore the jawline that had subconsciously been driving him crazy for years. 

Their chests brushed against each other and Shawn bucked under him at the sudden skin contact. Lassiter groaned, mouthing at a sensitive spot under Shawn’s ear. 

“This is definitely not roller coaster rules, Lassie,” he gasped. 

Lassiter paused, satisfied in his general retribution of giving Spencer a visible hickey on his neck. “Do you want off the ride?” 

“Oh, no no no, Lassafrass, I’m all for breaking the rules.” Shawn shifted under him and suddenly their lower bodies were flush together in all the right ways.

He couldn’t help but grind down as Shawn moved up, drawing a low moan out of the man below him.

It had been too long since he’d done this, but he knew he couldn’t keep this position up forever with any satisfying conclusion. Lassiter moved them both onto their sides, taking a second to breathe before capturing Shawn’s mouth in a searching kiss, his hand secure on the back of his neck. God, he was good at that. Everything Lassiter offered, Shawn took and gave back with more energy as their legs tangled, drawing each other impossibly closer. 

Lassiter felt Shawn’s hand slide down his side the same time his hips pulled back, just enough for his arm to move between them. A questioning sound from Shawn and a grunt of absolute approval from him was followed by Shawn cupping him through the thin cotton of his sleep pants. 

He bucked into the heat and delicious pressure, overtaken with the concept that this was happening, then realized that he had a part to play as well. Making a similar move, Lassiter slowed their kissing until they were barely moving, more breathing through their mouths as their lips touched, close and hot and present. He shifted, getting his right hand free to tease at Shawn’s waistband. 

They kissed again lightly, mutually letting the moment sink in. Lassiter’s hand slid into Shawn’s boxers and wrapped around his length, shocked at the heat and reaction of the man he was tangled up with. 

Shawn moaned and followed suit, moving off of the bulge in Lassiter’s pants briefly to go under the waistband, moving nearly in sync with Lassiter’s hand as they gripped each other. 

Years ago he would’ve balked at the very notion of getting in Spencer’s pants, but now it was all he could focus on. 

Lassiter felt Shawn’s cock twitch at the pressure, giving him some slickness to work with. It had been a long time since he’d been with another man, but the whole riding a bike analogy applied. Shawn started pumping him, both shifting until the angles worked and they could move their arms freely but still be close enough to kiss and hold on with their free hands. 

He barely remembered where he was, his mind floating between two extremes of sensation, to touch and be touched, while still trying to make it good for Shawn. And it was - it was so good, just the skin on skin contact, the heavy kissing, the thrill of the fumble. He’d never get tired of the way Shawn’s breath hitched and slid into moans and paused to kiss him deeply and oh, _oh_ _God that felt perfect_. 

He was overtaken with sensation, and knowing he was close he let go of Shawn and grasped onto his arm instead, feeling the tightening of his muscles as he jacked him off. He flicked his thumb just right under the head of his cock and it sent him reeling.

“Fuck, Shawn don’t stop-” Lassiter panted, unable to censor himself. 

Shawn held steady, capturing Lassiter in a kiss just as he crested the wave of sensation, bucking into Shawn’s body as he came. 

He took a second to come back to earth, not used to his release being so intense. He was unbearably hot, so as soon as he could move he shucked off his pajama bottoms and used the fabric to wipe off the mess he made. 

“Christ, Spencer. I don’t even want to know where you learned that.”

Shawn laughed. “Attending clown school in the late 90s is a fraught time for any young--”

Lassiter cut him off with a shove that sent Shawn to his back, the momentum taking Lassiter over him, skin on skin. “Shut  _ up, _ Spencer.” He got rid of Shawn’s boxers, momentarily frustrated with how dark it was in the cabin.    


Shawn brought up his hands to Lassiter’s sides, half-heartedly trying to tickle at his sides. “What happened to  _ Oh Shawn, don’t stop! _ ?”

“The magic is gone,” Lassiter threw at him, words empty of any real bite. Shawn’s wandering fingers managed to make him flinch and he stopped that quickly, grabbing his arms and pressing his wrists into the bed on either side of his head, bringing him close to Shawn’s face. He shifted his hips back enough to feel Shawn’s hardness still under him. 

“Silly Lassie,” Shawn breathed, rutting up into his hip, “clowns don’t do  _ magic.” _

Somehow incredibly annoyed and still insanely turned on, Lassiter bit at Shawn’s neck, shoving his weight into holding his arms down before inching down his body. He’d show Shawn  _ magic _ , goddammit. 

He felt Shawn tense under him and he sped up his plan, sucking at Shawn’s chest, moving his hands off his arms to toy instead with his nipples, focused on providing sensation - wet mouth and cool air, friction and softness, hands everywhere and nowhere. 

It had been a while since Lassiter had given anyone a blowjob but he wasn’t going to back down now, not with a willing and squirming Shawn under him. 

“Lassie - you don’t have to - but I’m not complaining - far from it really,” Shawn panted out above him. 

He moved to brace his left arm over Shawn’s stomach and held the base of his cock in his right hand. He licked his lips, tasting the air between them before moving in, kissing up his length, flicking out his tongue just under the head and laving at the tip, all while riding out Shawn’s thrusting hips under him. 

As he closed his mouth around Shawn he was hyper aware of every sound above him, taking in the gasps of  _ yes  _ and  _ more _ and  _ just like that Lassie - fuck _ guiding him. 

He sped up, letting his right hand do the bulk of the work as he focused on Shawn’s sensitive head, barely prepared when Shawn went taut and came, swallowing as much as he could. 

Lassiter landed on his back next to Shawn, both regaining their breath. Neither said a word in the pre-dawn hours. After a few minutes they cooled and Shawn sleepily dragged the blankets over them. A minute later, he found Lassiter’s hand with his, gripping it tightly before holding on for the night. 

-

Lassiter woke to a warm body draped over him, only slightly uncomfortable with how sweaty and sticky he was. There was no early-morning confusion as to who was in his bed or what had happened the night before.    


Or maybe it was more of a… delayed shock. 

Whatever it was, Lassiter bypassed the pillow talk and nearly shoved Shawn off of him so he could go to the modern outhouse. He wanted to clean up, but he really, really needed to pee. As he grabbed some clothes from the shelf and made his way to the back door, he faintly heard Shawn yell, “Well,  _ that _ was romantic!”

He laughed despite himself, suddenly aware of just how unbothered he was by this new development. The rarity of having a good thing happen to him made Lassiter feel light on his feet as he cleaned up. Of course, there was always the possibility of it all crashing down around him - as most good things tended to do - but at this point in his life Lassiter took what he could get. 

Shawn, dressed but still looking sleepy, greeted him as he came back inside. “Mornin’ sugarcakes,” he mumbled, walking past Lassiter and outside to the bathroom. 

Lassiter rolled his eyes and beelined toward the coffee, needing caffeine to face the day. Halfway through the pot filling, Shawn noisily came back inside and slung his arms around Lassiter’s waist, making a show of feeling his chest before simply hugging on to him. 

“Gotta say, Lassie, this wasn’t entirely what I expected when I followed you up here.”   


Lassiter tensed minutely, but Shawn didn’t release his hold around his chest. If anything, he tightened. 

“Oh?” he asked and moved his hands to cover Shawn’s over his front. 

“Well, for one thing,” Shawn said, nuzzling in between Lassiter’s shoulder blades. “I thought there’d be more yelling.”   


“I did yell at you.”   


“Yeah, but we both know it was half-hearted at best.”   


Lassiter rolled his eyes and smiled, rocking back and forth as Shawn swayed him. 

“I also expected more of a hetero-freakout from you, to be honest.”

Lassiter turned at that, sensing another genuine question moment buried in Shawn’s quiet words. “I’m not straight, Spencer. I may not be marching in parades, but I don’t hide it either.”   


Shawn looked up at him, more vulnerable and worried than Lassiter had ever seen him. “Cops aren’t exactly flying the rainbow flag either.”

Lassiter sighed, knowing that he wasn’t wrong there. But he also knew that Vick was a good chief and that she’d put her foot down if anyone stepped out of line. “I’m not the only one who has to think about that,” he said instead, giving Shawn a look. “Reputation can be everything in a business like yours.”

“As if I’m not immediately fruity to complete strangers already,” Shawn joked. “Maybe I’m jumping way ahead here, but is this going to be a thing? Like a real thing, not just a super-secret flingy thing or thing we leave in the woods thing? ‘Cause I would like to be a thing with you Lassie.”

Lassiter leaned in and kissed Shawn in the daylight, knowing his answer already. “I would like that.”

He leaned back to see Shawn give a brilliant smile and bounce up and down on his feet. He could already tell that being in a relationship with Shawn was bound to be exhausting. Exciting and potentially wonderful, but exhausting nonetheless. 

Shawn leaned in for a quick peck before finding some energy and bounding around him, clapping his hands and opening the fridge. “I’m thinking breakfast to celebrate! A full Spanish!”   


“You mean full English? - no, don’t say it!” 

Shawn laughed, a sound Lassiter could get used to.

“I brought eggs, we could scramble some up.”

“Perfect! I’ll slice up the pineapple.”   


“I didn’t bring-” Lasiter stopped talking as he watched Shawn walk to his backpack and pull out a whole pineapple. He really shouldn’t have been surprised. “What the hell else do you have in there?”   


“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Shawn said suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows like an idiot. 

Lassiter realized suddenly that his life would be full of Shawn making everything sound suggestive and dirty for the foreseeable future. Surprisingly, he found that he didn’t quite mind. It was just another in a long list of revelations he’d had that led to this moment. 

-

Carlton managed to stay completely calm and chill about the new development for nearly all morning, but he brought it up as they set out to take a walk through the nearby forest. It was a beautiful morning and had warmed up enough for a quick hike to be enjoyable, despite the lingering mud. 

Shawn wore Lassiter’s jacket again, but in the morning light it felt different than loaning it to him the night before. Like he’d given his letterman jacket to his new boyfriend. Something base leaped in his chest - he’d always been possessive when in a relationship, and it felt like this one would be no different. Shawn was known to be a flirt, and he didn’t know how seriously he was going to take this once they left the cabin. He needed to know.

He waited until they were further away from the house to start, wanting the relative beauty and quiet of the forest to ground him. He was about to instigate a  _ what are we  _ relationship talk because apparently he couldn’t leave a good thing alone. They’d established that they were a  _ thing _ , but he needed something more concrete than that. Things could be… well, anything, and Lassiter needed more definition. Preferably in print, notarized, and sworn in court before a judge. His heart had been broken before due to not being on the same page as his partner, and he couldn’t do that with Shawn. 

“Listen, Shawn. About this... whatever it is, after this week is done and we’re back in Santa Barbara…” Lassiter trailed to a stop near a clearing, looking down and kicking at a stray rock like a nervous kid. 

“Oh come on, a heart to heart on relationship things less than twelve hours after it started?” Shawn joked. “Really man?”

“Is this a relationship?” Lassiter looked up. 

“Lassie…”

“I know it’s soon, but I need to define it. If you were anyone else, I’d need the same thing,” he said seriously. “I have boundaries, even though it may not seem like it, and I can be… possessive of people close to me. And we work together, which is a whole level of possible issues we should figure out sooner than later.”

Shawn spun in a circle, looking around at the trees and visibly trying to figure out how to answer Lassiter’s question. “What do you want, Lassie?” he asked instead. “What do you want from me?”

What did he want from Shawn? A year ago it would’ve been the truth about him not being a psychic. He paused for a second, imagining how  _ that _ conversation would go. Would he be shocked? Of course not. But he would like the explanation. It’s been so long, and he mostly figured that Shawn had some sort of heightened observational skills. 

With all the revealing about childhoods and how Henry raised him to be a mini-cop, combined with Henry’s already impressive skills as a detective, the pieces weren’t that hard to put together. But the explanation could wait until Shawn felt comfortable enough to tell him. There wasn’t any point to forcing it out of him now.

But a relationship? A steady, committed, reliable thing with Spencer? It was one thing to spend so much time  _ wanting  _ Shawn, to flirt with the idea of being with him, of what that would be like. The reality of it was another thing entirely. The reality of it was much, much better. Lassiter was adult enough to realize that a relationship wasn’t just  _ get together and live happily ever after _ \- relationships were built up and up on the constant choice of being together.

Patience. Empathy. Understanding. All the buzzwords his former couples counselor had used to try and fix a broken marriage were important, and if anything Lassiter wanted to give whatever chance he had Spencer had a good start.    


Patience was easy. Lassiter wasn’t a patient man by nature, but after years of being around the various antics of Shawn and not murdering him on sight, patience came with the whole package. Even if Shawn went down one of his rambling, seemingly out of context rants about something, Lassiter always knew that he had a point. He may have to work a little harder on that from a relationship standpoint, but he knew he could be patient with Shawn. 

Empathy. The very word sent his teeth on edge, but he knew it was important. He was trained in false empathy back at the academy in order to make criminals think he was on their side, but he was never very good at the acting part. Empathy - real empathy - takes real knowledge of the person. He had little for Shawn in the beginning, thinking he was shallow and annoying, but the more he got to know him the more he found in common with the fake psychic, especially with all the talk in the previous days. 

Understanding came from that empathy. Lassiter knew very well that he would never be on Shawn’s level of wild deductive reasoning or just wildness in general, but he was looking forward to understanding him more and more. 

What did he want from Shawn? Lassiter looked up at the man in front of him, a man who looked equally ready to bolt back to the cabin or jump him right there in the woods. 

“I want a relationship with you,” he stated. “A serious, monogamous relationship. I can’t do it any other way.”

Shawn broke into a grin, his whole frame relaxing at the pronouncement. “Good, good Lassie, because rare pokemon trading cards on the table? I’m cool with going steady. In fact, I’d prefer it!”

They stood in the clearing, grinning at each other like idiots for a full minute before Shawn broke the silence. 

“Now should we hold hands, skip down the path, and blush like little kids?” he joked, moving forward and taking Lassiter’s hand in his. “You already gave me your jacket to wear so all the other boys will know I’m yours.”

Lassiter blushed uncontrollably at the image, his grip tightening on Shawn’s hand.

“Oh my God,” Shawn laughed. “You’re going to be so fun to tease, Lassiecakes!”

“Spencer if you don’t stop -”

Shawn cut him off with a kiss, pushing away the lingering doubts and anxieties in his mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! I'd really appreciate it if you left a comment!
> 
> thanks as always to @otava for beta work! I couldn't have done this so quickly without them! 
> 
> follow me on tumblr @viceversawrites :D


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